Monday, August 13, 2007

This is something I stumbled upon some time back, read, quickly saved as a draft on my blog - and then completely forgot about.

This was Kulpreet Singh's response in a thread on the forums - this beautiful soul more commonly known as "simmal tree" on the net.

Just because I'm stubborn and think that telling any reader what the thread was about will mar the effect of this post, I'm not going to tell you what the thread was about.

=)

Read it nice and slow, don't just skim over it...

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vwihgurU jI kw Kwlsw!vwihgurU jI kI &iqh!!

Well firstly, I am so uneducated and hypocritical - I do not follow maryada properly

I don't know the first thing about ghiaan or dhiaan or karma

But as far as rehit is concerned in any way .. how is anything practical?

I know this is very off topic for this thread

but people above were talking about how thigns are practical

I don't think it's about practicality ever in Sikhi

I think it's about love

I mean what is Sikhi without love and faith?

We need to learn a lot from the Gursikhs in our history...

How can you drink the water after washing the Guru's feet?How can you clean the GUru's feet with your hair?How can you sacrifice your mind by cutting it apart and putting it before the Guru?How can you go into the battle field and not come out even if you are ripped apart ?How can you work with your hands while doing simran?How can you do simran 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year?How can you see God in everybody?How can you have no revenge, but always justice?

How could you have so much love for your Guru that whenever you call him he appears before you in the flesh?

How could you have so much love for the GUru that you manage the whole langar yourself and even get mentioned in the Guru GRanth Sahib?

How could you say that there are millions of other poor people like you - with the grace of the Sikhs your kingdom is established?

How could you get up

and allow your Guru to chop off your head with his sword?

How could you pray that your skin is used as the shoes of Gursikhs?

How could you have your scalp cut off but not your hair?How could you have your body cut piece by piece and continue reciting Gurbani?How could you be cut on a spinning wheel?How could you be sawed in half?

How could you travel all around the world to preach Sikhi by foot?

If your father gave you money to invest, how could you spend it on setting up a langar for poor people?

If you had been held in a concentration camp and starved for many days, how could you tolerate your children being killed and their dead bodies being strung around your neck?

How could you sit in a boiling pot, then a hot stove, then have sand poured on your wounds?

How could you walk and fight oppressors while your head is cut off and in your palm?How could you stay underwater for three days meeting with God?How could you stop a falling rock with your hand?How could a falling boulder melt into the shape of your body and not hurt you?How could bitter nuts become sweet by the touch of your hand?How could an ignorant deaf and mute man become a scholar of the Geeta by your touch?How could countless sick people get cured by your touch?

If you realized that you had gone against hukam by bringing your dead friend back to life, how could you sacrifice your own life and die right there on the spot?

How could you throw yourself into a fire if the Guru promised you liberation for doing it?How could you lead 40 men back to their Guru in the battlefield?

If 40 of your Sikhs deserted you and rejected you as their Guru, how could you manage to forgive them and give them liberation?

How could you become the Guru's own bodyguard?

If the people of another religion needed your father to sacrifice his life, how could you encourage him to do this at the tender age of 9?

How could you watch your Sikhs be

ing killed in many ways and then give your own life instead of accepting Islam and putting other religious groups at risk?

How could you be only 7 years old and reign the universe as the Guru of the Sikhs?

How could you be so wise at such a young age that the Guru himself calls you "Baba Buddha" ?

How could you fight alongside your brothers in countless battles despite the negative stereotypes of women being weak?

How could you be bricked alive as a young child?How could you cut the heads off five people and bring them back to life?How could you, being the Guru, accept five Khalsas as your Guru?

How could you tolerate losing all your family and kingdom, be forced to live in a jungle alone for some weeks, and still sing prayers that you can't live without God?How could you walk everyday at 1 in the morning to get bathwater for your Guru while being over 70 years of age?

If the leg of your Guru's bathtub broke and only a sharp nail remained, how could you put your hand there and let it be crushed into the nail rather than allow the bathtub to fall over?

If your Guru commanded you to eat the dead body under a white sheet, how could you accept the command and ask which side to start on?

How could you, being the Guru, tell a Sikh that your beard was made to clean his feet?How could you hold up the ship of your Sikh on your shoulder while sitting in a hut meditating?

If the whole town was taken over by imposters and fake-Gurus, how could you recognize the real Guru?

How could you eat the leftover nuts from the manure of the horses in the Guru's fort rather than let it go to waste?

How could you, despite being accused of being an elitist Brahmin, eat the left-overs of the sangat's langar rather than let it go to waste?

How could you manage to have your own son's beating heart thrust into your mouth?

How could you inspire your son-in-law to become Maharaja of Punjab, and then fight alongside

him in many battles against oppressors?

If you were the Maharaja of Punjab and made mistakes against Sikhi, how could you tolerate being publically whipped at the Akal Takhat?

How could you have the spiritual faith and strength to stop the fastest flowing river in India in order to pass your army from one side to the other side?

If you were a Singh warrior, how could battle with countless oppressive armies, raid and loot villages, and have to rescue many young girls and women, but never once have a bad thought about them?

How could you fight to the death against thousands of attackers with one sword?How could you live 40 days on a hunger strike rather than break your sarblohee bibek?How could you spend almost 8 years in solitary confinement in a small dark room?

How could you put yourself on the edge of a well while doing simran so that if you fall asleep, you will die?

How could you start orphanages and treatment camps open to thousands of people regardless of their religion or background?

How could you work endlessly to protect the environment and the rights of animals in your society?

How could you do one akhand paat every week, every year for several years of your life?

How could you defend the Harimandir Sahib against tanks, helicopters and highly trained commandos with just a group of Singhs?How could you get tens of thousands of people to take amrit in the span of a few months?

How could you strap a bomb to your body and sacrifice your own life to bring justice to the corrupt chief minister of Punjab?

How could you sacrifice your own life to bring justice to the corrupt Prime Minister of India?

How could you spend years and years in Punjab jails being tortured?

How could you fight endlessly for human rights despite the risks to your life?______________________________________________________

and still have pyaar, still have faith, still d

o simran, still love Guru jee?

and Still sing "thera keeaa meethaa laagai" How could you?Is it impractical?

These were real Sikhs - each and every line above. And that is just a FRACTION OF THEM ALL.

How could they do those things for their Guru and still stay in Chardee Kalaa?

I could never. I can't imagine. I could never imagine. I have no courage. No love. No faith.

I take this history for granted every day. I'm over dramatic, unappreciative, irresponsible and fraudulent ... I could never do these things.

These are the Khalsa above - this is what real faith is.

We are the children of a inexplicably magnificent legacy.

This is pyaar, this is Sikhi. May Guru jee bless us with the dust of their feet.